Hungary’s foreign minister addresses Slovakia’s language law: protecting ethnic minorities amid rising tensions
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Hungary’s government has so far taken all the necessary steps in connection with Slovakia’s new language law, Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó said in Budapest on Monday, adding that the government would continue to work to ensure that the law has no negative impact on ethnic Hungarians.
Szijjártó talks about Slovakia’s language law
Speaking at a hearing of parliament’s national cohesion committee, Szijjártó noted that in 2015, Ukraine curbed the ethnic Hungarian minority’s right to the use of its mother tongue.
“And we are also hearing reports of the amendment of the language law in Slovakia, so we started professional consultations on it on time,” he said.
Szijjártó said he was in constant contact with Juraj Blanar, his Slovak counterpart, on a number of issues, including the language law. “He told me that the reason for and the aim of these new language regulations does not affect the representation and use of minority languages in any way,” Szijjártó said. “So this thinking didn’t start because of the minority languages and isn’t aimed against them.”
He said Blanar had told him that the aim was to protect the Slovak language from “external influences that arise from global changes enabling an increasingly rapid flow of information”.
“If that’s the aim, then it’s reassuring,” Szijjártó said. “But usually it’s not the goals but rather the execution that determines the outcome, so we agreed to continue consulting as the bill progresses so as to avoid an aspect in the law that could have a negative effect on the use of the Hungarian language.”
He noted that Slovakia’s government has an ethnic Hungarian minority commissioner, Ákos Horony, who is in constant talks with the culture ministry, which is in charge of the bill.
He said the mutual trust between Hungary and Slovakia provided a sound basis for avoiding a repeat of what happened in the case of ethnic Hungarians in Ukraine when it comes to the Slovak language law.